From “It’s time for Democrats to go low” by Peter Rothpletz at The Guardian: ”

What the 2024 election results made clear is that the Obama coalition is dead. If Democrats are to have any shot at reclaiming power, so too must be the niceties and mores of the Obama era.

Yes, Democrats must get mean – ruthlessly, bitterly mean. This is not to say, however, that they need merely to cast aside the former first lady’s once-famous, now-infamous messaging mantra. No, what I prescribe is not just a new approach to political discourse but a new theory of opposition party politics.

Trumpism has corrupted America in many ways, but one of the most obvious is how voters now expect lawmakers and surrogates to be truly vicious cultural warriors for them….As the commentator SE Cupp recently observed, “it doesn’t get said enough, but Trump’s enduring legacy will be convincing BOTH parties to lower the bar, and that possessing moral authority on anything is no longer a currency that matters”. Democrats can either bemoan the fact the fundamental rules of politics and discourse have changed or they can adapt to it. In the four years to come, emboldened voices on the right will work to expand the Overton window. Democrats’ reaction to this effort must not materialize as feigned – or earnest – injury and horror. Take the punch and return the favor.

Rothpletz argues further, “This new, more muscular messaging strategy must be combined with a far more aggressive war footing in the halls of Congress….Mike Johnson, the House speaker, will have only a 220-seat majority. However, Republicans are poised to lose three seats (if not more) as members resign to join the Trump administration. That will leave them with a majority of 217-seats, meaning Johnson can only afford to lose one member on major – and minor – votes…..Johnson will need to pass a bill to fund the government. Democrats must not help him.”

Also, “Time and again congressional Democrats have swept in to save Republican leaders – and Republican voters – from their own lawmakers. This generosity must end. The Dems must bleed the Republican party of its political capital at every opportunity….On a Bulwark podcast this week, the writer Jonathan V Last channeled Alan Moore’s iconic comic book anti-hero Rorschach to describe the mentality Democrats should adopt: “The politicians will look up and shout ‘save us,’ and I’ll look down, and whisper ‘no.’”

Democrats do need to toughen up. But they don’t have the luxury of behaving as lawless and morally bankrupt as Republicans, who routinely get away with behavior that would doom any Democrat. For example, ask yourself what would happen if Democrats staged a riot at the U.S. capitol, which resulted in the death of six police officers. Then those rioters are set free by a Democratic president, and the same Democratic senators who condemned the riots later condone it.

Or look at how the double-standard played out with respect to Supreme Court confirmations. It would take a hell of a lot of inflation to enable Democrats to get away with half the sleaze that Mitch McConnell and Republicans shrug off as business as usual. Yes, Dems can play tougher. Few voters would care if Leader Jeffries poached a couple of Republicans to switch parties with political inducements. But any such moves should be carefully calibrated.